2010 International Year of the Nurse

[Truth66]

I received an e-mail from the International Association of Forensic Nurses today and I was surprised to see in the text that this year is the International Year of the Nurse. It recognizes the 100 th anniversary of the death of Florence Nightengale.

Now this got me thinking, what kinds of achievements have nurses seen in the past 100 years? I know we don't see too much of the all white uniforms and caps anymore, but has nursing really changed other than the increases in science, technology and education?

Nurses are still viewed in many corners of society as mere severvants to the physicians and other powers that be in the complex and bureaucratic realm of health care. Many nurses still have working conditions that can be described as border line slavery of the fact that they are forced to work through their entitled breaks, working hours past their shift and not getting paid for it (let alone getting paid overtime), routinely facing that proverbial whip to do even more tasks on the job that are physically impossible to do in the time allowed in a shift, regularly face overwhelming amounts of verbal, psychological and physical abuse from a multitude of different sources and so on.

Nursing has come along way in 100 years, while many will argue that nothing has changed.

To learn more about the International Year of the Nurse visit:

http://www.2010iynurse.net/

[neonatal_nurse]

I couldn't agree more. The thing is, we nurses are very humble people (or at least in general) that everytime we make big achievements, or little ones, we don't really press release it, yet alone inform the whole world about it. It's not like we have cameras infront of our faces 24/7 like reality stars or celebrities. But we definitely could use more recognition in any way possible. We nurses are trully heroes in our own right. So let's all be proud of that. :rckn:

And here is something that I would like to say to each nurse in every corner of the world, not everyone gives us this:

:tku: